1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a stem cell differentiation determination device and method and a program which determine whether a stem cell has been differentiated on the basis of an observation image obtained by capturing an image of an observation region including a stem cell.
2. Description of the Related Art
A stem cell, such as an ES cell or an iPS cell, has the capability to be differentiated to cells of various tissues and has drawn attention since it can be applied to, for example, regenerative medicine, the development of drugs, and the interpretation of disease.
The stem cell is seeded in a culture medium in a culture container which is provided in a cell culture device and is multiplied in the culture medium. Stem cell colonies are grown while adjacent stem cell colonies are repeatedly combined with each other.
It is necessary to multiply the stem cell while maintaining the stem cell in an undifferentiated state, in order to improve differentiation efficiency when the stem cell is differentiated to a cell of a target tissue in the growth process of the stem cell. Therefore, once the stem cell starts to be differentiated, it is difficult to grow the stem cell to a target tissue.
There is a technique which cuts out only the region which is likely to be undifferentiated in a stem cell colony and transplants the cut region to another culture container to perform subculturing. However, when the subculturing is performed, it is necessary to extract only the undifferentiated stem cell. That is, when the stem cell is cultured, it is necessary to appropriately determine the differentiation and undifferentiation of the stem cell.
For example, JP2012-95627A and JP2011-229410A disclose a technique which captures an image of a stem cell over time, checks a change in the observation image over time, and determines the undifferentiation and differentiation of the stem cell.
WO2012/147403A and JP2009-44974A disclose a technique which acquires various feature amounts of a stem cell colony that is being cultured and determines the undifferentiation and differentiation of each colony on the basis of the feature amounts.
JP4852890B discloses a technique which determines the undifferentiation and differentiation of a stem cell, using tens of types of feature amounts including, for example, the number of stem cells and the number of nucleoli.